OneDrive for web gets offline mode with speed improvements

Microsoft today announced that OneDrive for web is getting offline mode, and it is rolling out globally to OneDrive work and school users starting today.

The new Offline mode in OneDrive for web will allow you to open and interact with OneDrive’s “Home,” “My files,” “Shared,” “Favorites,” “People,” and, “Meeting” views, view folders, file names, and metadata such as file owner, size, recent activity, last open date, and more, use the “My files” view of OneDrive for web to rename, sort, move, or copy files and open locally stored Office and non-Office files (files marked as “available offline”) in their native app and make and save edits. Yes, you can do all these tasks without an internet connection. When internet connection comes back online, all your changes will be synced to the cloud.

To use the new Offline mode in OneDrive for web, you should be running the latest OneDrive sync app on Windows or Mac. After installing thr OneDrive Sync app, you should go to OneDrive for web in Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome to complete the one-time set up of offline mode.

Microsoft listed the following as the current limitations of OneDrive for web offline mode:

1. Offline mode is only supported for OneDrive for work and school users
2. Offline mode is currently supported only on Windows (Windows 10?and later) and macOS devices (macOS 12 Monterey or later) and Chromium-based browsers (Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome)
3. Currently, offline mode is not supported if you have added a shortcut to shared folders in OneDrive.
4. Offline mode is supported if you have 250,000 files or fewer in your OneDrive.
5. A?full?offline experience in OneDrive for web —where you can perform all of the operations that are available online is not yet supported. The following features are not available when you are offline.
6. Viewing your recent document libraries under Quick Access
7. Sharing, copying links, downloading your files
8. Deleting files
9. Managing access to your files
10. Previewing your file in online previewer
11. Using “Search”
12. Creating and managing Power Automate flows
13. Copilot
14. Viewing file version history
15. Navigating to “Recycle bin”

If you are a OneDrive for web user, you will find this new offline mode feature really useful. You can learn more about this feature here.